Sunday, November 29, 2015

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Well, at the very least, this film isn't Christmas Vacation 2.

Vacation – 3 out of 5

It’s been over 30 years since the Griswolds first took their
original vacation to Wally World in John Hughes’ National Lampoon’s
Vacation.It was a classic trip that
still holds up today and even gave us more laughs when the Griswalds went to
Europe and, in my opinion, hit their highest note when the holidays came and we
got Christmas Vacation.Since that time of egg nog and good cheer, we had some a more
forgettable trip to Vegas but how does this new trip hold up?How does this non-reboot that’s sort of a reboot but
also is a remake but not really remake sequel that is simple titled Vacation rank?Well, long story short, it’s better than
Vegas Vacation, I can tell ya that.

Chase, taking on the Mad Scientist look now.

Rusty Griswold is now an adult and is being portrayed, once
again, by a different actor (this time it’s Ed Helms).Well, it seems his wife Debbie (Christina
Applegate) isn’t the happiest in their marriage and isn’t looking forward to
their yearly vacation to a boring old cabin by the lake.So, Rusty decides to pack the car, grab his
boys; James (Skylar Gisondo) and Kevin (Stelle Stebbins), and recreate the vacation
his father took him on years ago and head to Wally World.Well, things don't go quite as planned and life
makes sure to throw a wrench in the gears as often as it can.Can the Griswalds survive the trip, and each
other, and make it to the greatest theme park in the country?Or will everything go down in flames?

And the "Holiday Road" song should be cemented in your brain right about now.

Whenever I review a comedy that I don’t feel strongly about,
I always feel the need to remind myself that comedy is very subjective—in fact,
the two most subjective genres in the world of film, in my opinion, are comedy
and horror because the experiences are way more personal than other types of
films.When it comes to what makes us
laugh and what makes us scared, so much of what we see and hear can result in
a wide variety of reactions.What scares
or makes one person laugh can be annoying or lame to others.With that being said, I won’t say that
Vacation is an instant classic like the first trip so many years ago.The film isn’t terrible but it is very hit or
miss.

One of the misses is that Christina Applegate doesn't really feel like she'scontributing at all.

It'll be a cold day in hell when Charlie Day is not funny.

Some of the film’s strongest points involved the wide
variety of characters that come into play on the trip and the actors who
portrayed them.Proven funny-makers like
Leslie Mann, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, Nick Kroll, Tim Heidecker,
Kaitlin Olson, Michael Peña and Colin Hanks show up and provide some very
amusing and outright hilarious sequences that really help move the film along
and make up for the less-than-funny moments that bog the story down.Additionally, there are times when actors who
aren’t traditionally known for doing silly comedies come in and really had me
rolling.Actors like Chris Hemsworth and
Norman Reedus had some incredible solid scenes that proved to steal the moment and
became excellently written and incredibly performed bits of comedy gold.

See the gag is he has a big dick--which, honestly, could have been a terriblejoke if Hemsworth didn't nail it just right. Yep, that line sounded weird to me, too.

Another element that worked fantastically well with the film
was Steele Stebbins as Kevin, the younger sibling in the Griswold family.Without a hint of doubt in my book, this kid
was the funniest member of the family and had so many extremely hilarious
moments.His character would constantly
antagonize and berate his older brother and the vulgar things that would come
out of his mouth proved to be the right amount of shock value to be hysterical
but without crossing the line and feeling like it was being vulgar to get the
cheap laugh.

Also, the kid tries to murder people by suffocating them. That's just Comedy 101.

The parts that slowed the film down and weakened it to the
point it was nearly as bad as Vegas is that a lot of the jokes were really
poorly written.There are some gags that
try to poke fun at our digital and social media age but come off less like a
rousing send up of this reality and more like an aging stand-up comedian in a
dark, smoking and sparsely filled nightclub saying things like, “What’s the
deal with Facebook?It’s not a face that
you can see in a book, is it?”Then,
when you don’t have these weak bits, you have the even weaker bits of being
gross for the sake of a cheap laugh—only the laughs didn’t arrive for me.I stated that Stebbins’ character of Kevin
was written incredible well and was able to be that balanced of a character that
could say and do shocking things without feeling like a cheap shocking bit but
this balance isn’t seen in such parts as the family bathing in sewage
run-off.Instead, these parts just felt
like diving down to the lowest common denominator in order to get a quick laugh
but they came off more desperate or like throw-away gags so they ended up more
groan-inducing than chuckle worthy.

This was definitely the lowest of the low points with the humor.

Finally, the last element that really hurt this feature is
the fact that some members of the cast didn’t feel right or just didn’t need to
be there.For example, the bloated
corpse that appears to be Chevy Chase (seriously, he now looks like he could
play a drowned mad scientist on an episode of C.S.I.).I’d hate to kick a man when he’s down but the
reality is Chase’s glory days are long behind him and matters are only made
worse during his short scene when you see that he is trying way, way, WAY too
hard to make jokes out of nothing.It’s
sorta sad and depressing to watch.Almost as sad as seeing Ed Helms not really channeling even anything
remotely close to what other actors brought when they played Rusty.As much as I like the guy in the right role,
Helms just didn’t work as Rusty because he simply wasn’t Rusty.He was playing the same role he always plays
and that is basically just being Ed Helms.

#NotMyRusty

At times, Vacation is super hysterical and a laugh-out-loud
riot that is a lot of fun and filled with hte nostalgia of the 1983 cult classic
and, at other times, it is a weak, unfunny mess of bottom-of-the-barrel gags
that flounder around in a desperate grab for attention and pity laughs.I won’t call the film a waste of time because
when it works, it works insanely well but, in the end, the film doesn’t stand
much of a chance at holding its own against some of the better films in this
franchise.But it’s still way better
than Vegas.I can’t emphasize that
enough.

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Next movie needs a crossover with Jason Bourne and James Bond.

Spy – 5 out of 5

Spy comedies are nothing new.There’s been a few of them and they often
vary in the quality department.However,
when I heard that a writer/director I really enjoy; Paul Feig (the man who is,
according to people of the internet, super evil because he’s being the
Ghostbusters reboot—the remake that, also according to people on the internet,
will erase all memories and copies of the original film due to the lack of
dicks in the story), was creating a spy comedy with a comedic actress I really
enjoy; Melissa McCarthy, I was very excited but never got the opportunity to
see it until it came out on Home Media (but that’s because of my own spy stuff
I had to do—but don’t look too much into that because I might have to kill you
if you learn too much…or give you a stern talking to and have you pinky swear
you know nothing about my job).

But if you tell anyone, I will threaten you by vigorously shaking my fists.

Jude is here to lay down some law...I'm truly sorry forthat one.

Spy tells the story of CIA analyst Susan Cooper (Melissa
McCarthy) hitting the field after the agent she works with; Bradley Fine (Jude
Law), is murdered while on operative must try to find a suitcase nuke that’s in a
location known only by the daughter of an international terrorist (Rose
Byrne)—who, just so happens to be, the same person who killed Fine.However, along the way, Cooper must compete
with an irritate and rambunctious agent who keeps mucking things up (played by
Jason Statham).Now Cooper must find the
location of the nuke before it’s sold to the highest bidder and is unleashed on
the world and avenge her friend’s death.

It's hard to make killing a man funny but Feig and McCarthy did so and madeit look so easy.

Bobby Cannavale is in the film...and seems to berocking some guyliner.

I figured that Spy would be funny because I’m a fan of Paul
Feig and Melissa McCarthy but I don’t think I was prepared for exactly how
funny it was going to be.The story is
incredible solid and build on a foundation that creates a decent spy thriller
with surprisingly good action but, at the same time, does a great job of poking
fun at the genre.The cast is incredible
and a fantastic mix of proven funny-makers like McCarthy and other actors not
necessarily known for comedies but all doing an amazing job of bringing the
laughs—for example, Jason Statham was absolutely hysterical as he played a
slapstick-y and goofy character that I’ve never ever seen him play before.Finally, the comedy is unrelenting and gags
and jokes are coming at you fast and nonstop.Everything from simple jokes that rib spy and action film clichés to
slapstick humor to gross out jokes to more vulgar insult based lines litter almost every
second of the film and it had me laughing so hard and so often that I was
brought to tears every few minutes and found myself actually exhausted from how
much I laughed. I slept like a baby that night.

Every time I see Rose Byrne is in a comedy, I always try to convince myself she won'tbe funny but I'm always wrong. I really need to end this ridiculous preconceived notion.

I have a lot of friends who aren’t fans of McCarthy because
they see her as a one trick pony who only does films that involve her falling
down and making cracks about her being fat (yet, when Chris Farley made this
his career, it was considered brilliant—but I won’t get into the systemic
sexism of comedy and the entertainment business here) but while those gags can
be seen in the film on an occasion (and they are funny), this film also makes
fun of those tropes with jokes about McCarthy not wanting to be seen that way
and gags about her actually being a true badass.Some characters want to light her up as the
funny fat person but her character is actually a dedicated agent who wants to
do a good job and is actually really handy with a gun and in a fight.In fact, this film even does one better by
making her be the tough one and having the man who usually is doing the fighting
(Jason Statham) be the one who messes up and falls down.It’s honestly some immensely brilliant comedy
writing and just another reason that I am such a fan of Paul Feig and his
work…and, just to incite the rage of the internet, I’m excited as hell for his
Ghostbusters reboot.Yes, hate me for
not hating a film that hasn’t even been released in trailer form yet.I know it’s weird that I’m excited for
something rather than hating it based entirely on casting decisions alone.I’m a rarity on the ‘net.

Yes, that man is Jason Statham...and the look actually works for him.

Any complaints I have about the film are minor and involve a
couple of missteps in the story.Occasionally, a plot point felt superfluous and unneeded but it never
took away from the immensely entertaining experience.And sure, there was a joke or two where I
laughed very slightly less hard than other times but, seriously, from beginning
to end I was laughing my ass off to this film and was intensely entertained.

The longer you stare at the look on McCarthy's face the funnier this screenshotgets.

Paul Feig wrote and crafted a spy comedy that takes itself
seriously enough to look like a legit spy film (seriously, the action in this
film is really, really good) but, at the same time, balanced itself out with
some of the best humor I’ve seen in a film this year.Spy is definitely one of those comedies that
I will turn to repeatedly in the future because it is just that well
put-together and just that hysterical.And, if it’s not asking too much, I would very much love to see this
turn into a regular franchise and see more wild and funny adventures of Susan
Cooper. I'll consider it a personal favor, Mr. Feig.

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! The Final Girls kinda sounds like an all-girl punk band.

The Final Girls – 4 out of 5

There was a dark time where Meta humor was completely
misunderstood or just plain hated.Had a
film like The Final Girls came out a decade or so ago, it would have probably
been overlooked or ignored but thanks to the internet making satire the It
Thing now with comedy, features like this one can now flourish and find a
bigger audience (and get better reviews) than it would have years
previous.With that being said, let’s
re-release Last Action Hero for today’s audience because that was a Meta comedy
about action films that I always felt never got its fair shake.

"It's called The Final Girls but there are guys, too. This is sexist." - What a Men's Rights Activist is no doubt saying about this film right now...and in a fedora.

Max Cartwright (Taissa Farmiga) is a teenager who lost her
mother Nancy (Malin Akerman) to a car accident a few years back.However, Max can always see her because she once
starred in what is hailed as the greatest 80s slasher film; Camp
Bloodbath.At the behest of the film’s
biggest fan; Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), Max and her friends Chris (Alexander
Ludwig), Vicki (Nina Dobrev) and Gertie (Alia Shawkat), head to a double
feature screening of the film and its sequel but, after a terrible incident
sets the theater ablaze, the group mysteriously find themselves stuck in the
film.While it’s an emotional experience
for Max to be, in a roundabout way, reunited with her mother, the group must
also face the reality that they are stuck in a horror film and have to survive
in order to get out.So, as Duncan puts
it, they have to find the girl who survives it all and kills the bad guy and
stick with her.The only problem is that
the rules of the film have changed because of their presence.

I wonder if Camp Bloodbath has a plot twist similar to Sleepaway Camp.

The chemistry between mother and daughter in this filmwill give you, what the internet says, the feels.

The Final Girls is a fairly creative send up of the slasher
genre.While not as smart or as witty as
such films as the first Scream or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Final Girls
is a lot of fun and plays well enough on the clichés that crafted the genre
that contained such features as Friday the 13th and Halloween.The cast is great, visually the film looks
terrific as it easily (and creatively) differentiates the “real world” from the
“movie world” and the film goes the extra mile of adding a decent level of
emotion thanks to the plotline of Max reuniting with her mother.Overall it’s a very fun film that isn’t
trying to insult the slasher films it is lightly ribbing but rather lovingly
spoofing them.

The movie world is so bright and pretty.

Honestly, it wouldn't have hurt to have at least a dozenmore scenes with Middleditch...and two or so less withDeVine.

The only real downsides to the film is the fact that much of
the comedy is a bit weak and the best bits are seen in the trailer.Thomas Middleditch is a fantastically
talented comedian (check out Silicon Valley, yo) and his few scenes are terrifically
hilarious but he was sorely needed through much of the film.Fans of Adam DeVine might enjoy his few
scenes but that man always comes off like he’s trying too hard to be funny so I
never really find him that amusing, only grating.However, the biggest complaint I have and
something that really hurt the film, in my opinion, is the fact this feature
really needed to be rated R.Making it a
PG-13 film really waters a lot of its potential down and doesn’t really honor
the source material it is lampooning.This rating ended up eliminating a lot the elements you expect to see in
slasher films; things like gore and pointless nudity.Sure, they make fun of these films and their
love of showing off naked flesh and it works (it didn’t really need boobies and
butts to make this entertaining) but this movie really needed more guts and
gore. It just didn't feel like a proper slasher without copious amounts of blood.

I really wanted to make a pithy one-liner here about the burning arrows butI just don't see the point. It's not really a burning issue for me right now.

Despite its flaws, The Final Girls is creative and entertaining.I didn’t find it as funny as I hoped it would
have been and making it PG-13 really felt like a disservice and made it come off
like it was a edited-for-television version of a more ballsy film but it’s
still fun.Its plays off the idea of
regular people being thrown into a film extremely well and is definitely worth
a watch for those who love dark comedies or are fans of the horror/thriller/slasher genres.

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Well, it's better than Yesterdayland or BackInMyDayLand--that land is very racist and misogynistic.

Tomorrowland – 3 out of 5

This was one of those films that I was pretty excited to
watch when I saw the trailer.Not only
was it co-written by Brad Bird—the man who gave us The Iron Giant and The
Incredibles—but it had George Clooney and it had that throwback sci-fi feel
that gave off an impression of wonderment and fun.I had planned to see it in the theater but
life always seems to get in the way—and by “life,” I mean finding that extra
cash needed to go to the theater.Well,
it never happened where I was able to get to the cinema but once it arrived on
home media, I jumped at the opportunity to watch this one…and I was less than
impressed.

You don't even have to hear anything and that "It's A Small World After All" song isalready stuck in your head.

Casey (Britt Robertson) is a brilliant but troublesome girl
who is doing all she can to help her father keep his engineering job with NASA
but, after getting arrested, she finds a mysterious pin end up in her
belongings.When she touches the pin,
she is transported to a fantastical world of science and wonder beyond all
imagination.When she investigates the
source of this piece of flair, she is attacked by human-looking robots and is rescued by a
child calling herself Athena (Raffey Cassidy).Athena tells her that the world she saw is a utopia but she is needed to
help save the world.She takes Casey to
meet with a man named Frank Walker (George Clooney); an individual who was
banished from the utopia and together, they make it to this new dimension called
Tomorrowland and learn from an official named Nix (Hugh Laurie) that Casey’s
world is doomed.However, Frank
hypothesizes that Casey has what it takes to save the world and change
everything that Tomorrowland has become.

From a concept perspective, Tomorrowland is a decent film
that has some great performances from the cast, some absolutely incredible
special effects and some really surprisingly entertaining action
sequences.The feature is also
beautifully optimistic with its themes of protecting the environment and
preaching the importance of education and curiosity.Finally, Brad Bird does a tremendous job of
mixing dynamic camera work and clever editing to make the story really
flow.Tomorrowland is never really
boring and is serviceable as an entertaining movie but the film gets incredibly
sloppy with its story and plot.

Put your hands down. None of the movie's problems are your fault.

He's just here to say it's not Lupus.

One thing I should have realized going into the film was the
fact it was co-written by the man who is partially responsible for Lost (as
well as being partially responsible for the dive the series took after its epic
first season); Damon Lindelof.I won’t
go as far as to say that Lindelof’s writing is terrible because he does craft
some interesting ideas but he does clearly have problems with the development of
those ideas.Too often his writing goes
too vague and feels way underdeveloped to the point that too many plot points
and story elements go unexplained and results in strange character decisions or
turns in the story that never feel natural or organic.While I don’t know
if the problems with this film are his fault, the issues with the film’s
conflict being way too vague to feel threatening, the lack of an adequate or even
apparent antagonist and the sloppy way things get explained, take too long to
be explained or go completely unexplained are complaints that are seen way too
often in his work and it feels like way too big of a coincidence to not have
the responsibility of the messy story fall on his shoulders.Like other projects he’s been on, many of
these issues might have been caused because of editing for time but, as it is,
the film already feels like it is taking way too long to really get going and
I’d hate to see the length of the cut where everything is explained perfectly
well and contains a story that makes sense.

Story problems aside, the action did really kick ass in this one.

This is really the killing blow to Tomorrowland but it also
suffers from some more minor problems.For example, the film is way too preoccupied with trying to sound
futuristic and include sci-fi elements like alternate dimensions and playing
with time than worrying about the human element.The emphasis of style over substance ends up
making the emotional scenes feel empty and vacuous and really made for
characters that felt flat and one-dimensional.

*Gasp* It's like Clooney is looking right at me. Quick, do I have something on my face?

Overall, Tomorrowland is a watchable and half-way fun
feature that has a great cast, cool special effects and a nice throwback look
that is mixed with hints of Steampunk and a dash of Cyberpunk but the film is
weighed down by a story that feels uneven and meandering.Too many elements that need more depth are never
developed upon and the parts that need less expansion are expanding upon like
there is no tomorrow(land).I really
wanted to see this film and was very excited for it but I won’t go as far as to
call it a disappointment.Heck, the film
has George Clooney in it and that man is so talented that he already makes it
worth it (I could watch a film that was just him folding laundry and think it
was the coolest and most well-acted thing I’ve ever seen) and there was no
denying the ambition this film clearly held but, in the end, the film just fell
vastly short of the potential it had.

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About Me

I'm a geek, an atheist (who is also an ordained reverend), a peanut butter and jelly enthusiast, a man who shares the same name with a popular character from "Parks & Rec" and feels he can't live up to the awesomeness of the fictional character, was proudly banned from Reddit, an occasional Shakespearean performer, and a stand up comic.
Have any questions, recommendations or wanna share any theories on various movies? Email me at RevRonMovies@gmail.com and I'll talk about them on my new Q&A segment!